


Made

by roboticblanket



Series: All the Stars in all the Skies [1]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: ACOTAR - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Drabble Collection, Elain POV, Elucien - Freeform, F/M, acomaf, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 20:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9402629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roboticblanket/pseuds/roboticblanket
Summary: Elain has just been released from the cauldron and is struggling to come to terms with the initial shock of her new body. Amidst the horror of the ordeal she and her sister and their friends are going through, Elain is shocked to find out her connection to the strange red haired male with the single eye...





	

**Author's Note:**

> A series of drabbles and one-shots relating to the ACOTAR fandom, usually about 1,000 words long. I plan to include multiple characters/relationships and a mix of AU and canon writing. I do take requests and prompts so feel free to send them my way either here or on my tumblr account of the same name.

The moment she tumbled out of the cauldron onto the cold floor of that accursed, bone-white castle, Elain knew she would never look at the world the same way again.

When she finally, finally drew her first made breath, after lying in a puddle of that abominable magic for what felt like an eternity, right away Elain could tell she was no longer human.

The air felt thicker, more _alive_ , even in the dank castle chamber. Elain could feel, almost taste, the crackle of magic in the air, a portion of which, she realized solemnly, was now coming from her. She made to pick herself off the floor, and almost gasped at the sudden strength she felt in her new bones. She remained on her elbows, searching the room for something familiar to anchor herself. Her sister, _where is my sister?_

Ignoring the restraints of the gag in her mouth, Elain twisted around to see Feyre, whose face was stricken with mute horror in a way that Elain had never seen in all their years of hardship together. For the first time since their father had been beaten in front of her, Feyre looked helpless. Seeing her younger sister—her strong, resilient, clever sister—powerless to stop such madness told Elain of how truly hopeless the situation was.

Her other sister must have had the same thought, because the moment Elain looked up from the floor, Nesta let out a roar that seemed a thousand times louder to Elain’s new ears. Ears, Elain realized, that must now be pointed, or Nesta would not have had such a visceral reaction to her face.

Nesta continued to scream, Feyre fell to her knees and sobbed, the queens marveled at the horrific demonstration’s success, the one-eyed stranger with the red hair thrashed against his bonds, and amid the madness Elain noted dully that her skin was now glowing. The sight of something that once would have been impossible for her human body sent Elain reeling from her tentative grip on reality and she shut her eyes. She grasped desperately for something familiar about herself, but found little to comfort her. Her skin, aside from suddenly being luminescent, seemed flawless; her hearing was not only better but also more dimensional, Elain was hearing timbres in Nesta’s cries that she had never noticed as a human; colors now had a distinctive brightness and sheen that Elain just couldn’t register before. Out of context, it all could have sounded like a wonderful blessing, to be able to experience the world in such a way, but Elain could see no blessing in being taken from her home and forced to become…this. Staring into the void of her new existence, Elain tried everything she could to will it away, to wake up from this horrid nightmare, anything that meant she might reject this form. As she was searching for a way out of her body, Elain felt something, a strong connection radiating from within her. It was warm and inviting and almost familiar, though Elain couldn’t place why. Just as she was maybe grasping for something to cling to in this strange new body (A thread? A rope? What was that strange tightness?) she heard the voice of that monstrous Fae king.

“The hellcat now, if you’ll be so kind.”

Elain realized he must have meant Nesta, because she suddenly went quiet. The thought of her sister enduring what she just had…Elain couldn’t help it, she broke right there. She let herself kneel on the damp floor, shivering and practically naked in a room full of creatures she had feared all her life. And now she was one of them, Mother, how could she be _one of them?_

Through the maelstrom of her thoughts, Elain heard a vaguely familiar voice snarl at the king, _“Don’t just leave her on the damned floor.”_ There was a sudden scraping noise and Elain looked up to see the Fae male with one eye stalking toward her. The sight of him sparked something in her, and Elain cringed away from the unfamiliarity of it. When the male offered her his coat, she increased her efforts ten-fold. _Too much,_ she thought, _too much going on right now, I can barely make sense of any of it._

In the corner of her now impeccable vision, Elain could make out Nesta being dragged toward the horrid cauldron she had just come out of, kicking and screaming the entire way there. Remembering what it was like to be trapped beneath the magic waters brought on a new wave of shivers. Elain recalled how she tried with what little human strength she’d had to swim out of the wretched black water, but the cauldron, it seemed, would not let her surface until it was satisfied with her. She was held down beneath the water by some unseen magic until she was forced to succumb to the cauldron’s demands of Elain: her death. It must have been what allowed her to be made into this new creature, Elain thought, first she’d had to sacrifice her mortal life, however involuntarily. Dimly, Elain considered that if _she_ could survive the cauldron’s demands, then Nesta, who’d always been the most strong-willed of her sisters, would more than survive them.

But that didn’t mean that Elain herself had the strength to watch her sister’s humanity be taken from her.

Distracted by the sounds of her sister’s resistance, Elain allowed the Fae male she’d been cringing away from all this time to drape his coat over her shoulders. She took comfort in the little warmth it afforded her, if not also for the way it shielded her body from the many lecherous eyes in the room, giving her a shred of decency for the first time since she’d been dragged to this awful castle.

As Nesta’s shouts grew louder and more frantic, Elain knew it was only a matter of time before her sister was fully submerged in the cauldron, a thought punctuated by the king’s hiss of, _“Put her under.”_

There were more sounds of struggle, Elain could hear splashing noises as Nesta was undoubtedly struggling to her last human breath.

Elain supposed the room could have gone silent when Nesta was finally submerged in the cauldron, but she wasn’t used to all the new activity that her ears now picked up, and she wasn’t entirely yet sure what silence sounded like to a…Fae. As a result, Elain didn’t know for sure that Nesta was under until she watched Feyre suddenly vomit on the floor. For all her dislike of the Fae, Elain could not help but be relieved when Rhys knelt to comfort her sister, just as she felt some small relief that this unfamiliar male had come to comfort her.

Speaking of her strange savior, he was lifting Elain in his arms out of the way of the cauldron’s water that was now rushing toward them. Finally standing, and using the male’s powerful body to steady herself, Elain was finally able to get a good look at him.

As soon as she did, the world fell away.

Elain finally saw the male’s face in its entirety, his strong jaw framed by long hair that was colored a lovely shade of auburn, high cheekbones that slanted toward delicately pointed ears, but it was his rust colored eyes—or rather, _eye_ , given that the other seemed like it had been lost in some sort of terrible altercation, if the scar protruding from metal placeholder was anything to go by—that held Elain fast, powerless to speak or even breathe. All at once, that strange connection she’d found earlier began to stir incessantly within her. Before she was able to fully discern what it was she was feeling, or even properly meet the male’s eyes, Elain was ripped from the comforting grasp of his arms by Nesta. She knocked the male out of the way, screaming, _“Get off her!”_ Reeling a bit from the force of her sister, Elain began to slip on the wet floor, saved from another meeting with it only when her sister gripped her shoulders to steady her, Nesta ran her hands over Elain and sobbed her name over and over, trying to reconcile both of their new bodies.

Elain, however, found she could not pay much attention to her sister’s sobs. She stared over Nesta’s shoulder at the male who, in the confusion of Nesta’s forceful separation of the two, had instinctively looked at Elain.

The connection that had been stirring within Elain flared the moment she finally met eyes with him. Despite the ordeal she had just been through along with her sister, Elain could not help but feel at peace when she and this male looked at each other. She didn’t even know his name, something ancient within her seemed to whisper this like a burning, centuries old question. The strength and intensity of this feeling was altogether wonderful and terrifying to Elain, who had never felt the voracity of such a feeling in all her life. _What could this be?_ Elain thought. _Who are you?_

Moments later, after what felt like a lifetime of Nesta sobbing, Elain had her answer as the male whispered, “You’re my mate.”


End file.
